I don’t know why parents think it’s okay to lie to their children.  Maybe it’s because kids tend to believe every word told to them– I did, anyway. However, children grow up and eventually the truth of their mislead childhood is revealed.

Finding out that your parents downright lied to you about something is a shock, to say the least. Your whole world crumbles. Everything you ever knew is wrong. The older you get, the more betrayed you feel by your parents, and the more embarrassed you are in front of your friends when they tell you that dragonflies aren’t actually poisonous.

In my 17 years on this fabulous earth, I’ve unearthed quite a few untruths told to me by who I thought were my loving parents, and I wish to share them with you all for God knows what reason. Hopefully this post will shed some light on the situation, and refute any lies that your parental figures may have drilled into your mind.

1. My mom used to tell me that dragonflies can sting you. This alone terrified me, and the fact that they were poisonous as well (according to my mother) put dragonflies at the top of my “Predators To Be Afraid Of” list. Up until I was about 10, I was deathly afraid of dragonflies more than anything else in the world, and I may or may not have believed this up until my freshman year of high school.

2. If you drink dark soda (like Dr. Pepper and Coke), your teeth will turn black. I seriously did not have a sip of dark soda until I was in about middle school. I knew a girl at my church who had terrible cavities on the front of her teeth, and my parents said it was because she drank a lot of Pepsi.

3. My grandma told me that whistling in the house will result in you growing a mustache. This put a stop to my whistling, but my brother was even more determined to grow a mustache. The poor soul still can’t whistle.

4. Whenever I got in trouble as a kid, or was generally really annoying, my dad used to tell me that he still had the receipt from the hospital, and he was going to return me for another baby if I didn’t behave. As you can see, I’m still here, so I guess I did something right.

5. Once, when I was five, my brothers and I were swimming around in the pool, having a grand ol’ time, when I noticed that my fingers were all wrinkly and pruney. I got out to show my dad how cool my fingertips looked, and he told me that meant I was turning into an old lady. I cried.

6. My dad once told me that watermelons were elephant eggs, and that if I sat on them long enough, an elephant would hatch. I sat on one, and nearly had an aneurysm when he went to cut it open.

7. I was a wimp as a kid, not gonna lie. I loved going to the beach, but the water scared me to bits. My dad thought it would be funny to tell me that the seaweed that washed up on shore was shark guts. Needless to say, this did nothing to help my fear of the water. I don’t know what that man was thinking. For years, I refused to enter the water, and ran away at the sight of floating seaweed.

What kind of outrageous things did your parents use to tell you? Comment and share your story below. Don’t worry, I won’t judge you. Even though you all have probably already judged me.